Jun 24, 2016 | Climate, Food
By Daniel Mason-D’Croz, Senior Research Analyst at International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
(This post was originally published on the IFPRI Research Blog)
There are many challenges confronting decision makers in building robust and effective policies. They must balance pressing short-term needs with long-run challenges. They must confront these varying demands while facing imperfect knowledge of the complex systems (i.e. the economy, the environment, etc.) in which their policies will have impact. Above all, they also face the same uncertainty about the future as the rest of us, making perfect prediction about future outcomes impossible.
Nevertheless, decision makers must make choices in response to future challenges; inaction itself is an implicit choice, as change is inevitable. The challenge is to find a way to improve decision making, and in Multi-factor, multi-state, multi-model scenarios: exploring food and climate futures for Southeast Asia, recently published in Environmental Modelling Software, we believe we have presented a unique methodology to improve the decision-making process, by leveraging a participatory stakeholder-driven scenario development process with a multi-model ensemble to interactively explore future uncertainty with regional stakeholders.
This methodology was first applied in a workshop in Vietnam, where a diverse set of stakeholders from a wide range of sectors in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam collaborated to develop four multidimensional scenarios focusing on future agricultural development, food security, and climate change. Through building these multidimensional scenarios, stakeholders were challenged to consider potential interactions between varied parts of complex systems, like society and the environment. By doing this with a diverse set of stakeholders from public and private sectors, participants considered the future in a holistic and multidisciplinary manner. They were asked not only how different the future might look from the present, but also how they might respond to and shape future change. In so doing, regional stakeholders gained a better understanding of future uncertainty, while introspectively reviewing their own assumptions on the drivers of change, while creating four diverse scenarios that presented challenging plausible futures.
Participants at a 2013 workshop in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam – including regional stakeholders from development organizations, governments, the private sector, civil society, and academia – game out policies for the future of agriculture in Southeast Asia under different climate change scenarios, in an innovative approach combining collaboration with predictive modeling. © CGIAR photo
These scenarios were then quantified and simulated using a series of climate models, crop simulation models, and economic models including IFPRI’s IMPACT model and IIASA’s GLOBIOM model. Quantifying the scenarios in models can assist decision makers by pairing the qualitative aspects of the scenarios with quantitative analysis that systematically considers complex interactions and potential unintended consequences. Doing this quantification across a multi-model ensemble maintains the scenario diversity and richness, which in turn ensures that a broad possibility space is maintained throughout the process. This offers decision makers a larger test bed in which to evaluate potential policies. This multidimensionality and diversity of scenario outputs has been well received in the region, allowing them to be adapted and reused in a variety of policy engagements in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.
- In Cambodia, scenario results were used to inform their Climate Change Priorities Action Plan (CCPAP) to better target and prioritize the spending of its 164 million U.S. dollar projected budget, a policy engagement that was done over 6 to 8 months as scenario analysis and use were embedded in the CCPAP
- In Laos, scenario results were presented in a regional workshop led by CCAFS and UNEP WCMC to evaluate regional policies for economic development, agricultural development, and climate change and consider potential environmental tradeoffs
- In Vietnam, scenario results were shared in a workshop led by CCAFS and FAO to review and revise climate-smart agriculture investments proposals by considering the potential effectiveness of different investments under various climatic and socioeconomic conditions
The regional scenarios were a collaborative effort that involved colleagues from many institutions including IFPRI, IIASA, FAO, UNEP WCMC, the CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), and the University of Oxford, among others. It would not have been possible without the funding and support from CCAFS, the CGIAR research program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM),Global Futures and Strategic Foresight, the FAO’s program on Economic and Policy Innovations for Climate-Smart Agriculture (EPIC), and UNEP WCMC through a MacArthur Foundation grant.
Reference
Mason-D’Croz D, et. al. (2016). Multi-factor, multi-state, multi-model scenarios: Exploring food and climate futures for Southeast Asia. Environmental Modelling & Software
Volume 83, September 2016, Pages 255–270. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2016.05.008
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Mar 15, 2016 | Alumni, Environment, Young Scientists
By Carlijn Hendriks, Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) & IIASA Peccei award winner
Last summer, I participated in IIASA’s Young Scientist Summer Program, working with the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases and Ecosystems Services and Management programs. My research focused on what impacts the EU climate and air quality policy could have on ground level ozone around the middle of this century. While clean air policies should help reduce the pollution that can lead to ozone formation, we found that that climate change and energy policies will still increase ozone concentrations and damage by mid-century, unless stricter air pollution measures are implemented.
Ozone forms through reactions of various pollutants and chemicals in the atmosphere – a process that speeds up at higher temperatures. © Damián Bakarcic via Flickr
Ozone at ground level is an air pollutant, causing health and ecosystem problems. It is also an important component of summer smog. Ozone is not emitted into the atmosphere directly, but is produced when volatile organic carbons are oxidized in the presence of nitrogen oxides and light. Nitrogen oxides are released into the atmosphere mainly as a result of combustion processes (like car engines and industry), while non-methane volatile organic carbons (NMVOCs) come in large part from vegetation, especially broad-leaf trees and some fast-growing crops.
Part of the EU energy policy is to stimulate the use of sustainable biomass as an energy source. This could lead to expansion of commercial bioenergy crop production in plantations and an increasing use of forests. While this may help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it will also increase NMVOC emissions. At the same time, EU air quality policies aim to reduce emissions of air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and man-made NMVOC. Because some steps in the ground level ozone formation process are driven by absorption of light and/or proceed faster with higher temperatures, climate change could lead to higher ground level ozone concentrations in the future.
The separate effects of these three trends on ground level ozone have been studied before, but the question remains: what will be the combined impact of a) an increase of bioenergy plantations, b) EU’s air quality policy and c) climate change on health and ecosystem damage from ground level ozone? And which of the trends is the most important? To answer these questions, I used three models to study two energy and air quality scenarios for Europe under current and possible future climate conditions.
Two energy scenarios calculated by the Price-Induced Market Equilibrium System (PRIMES) model form the basis of this work. We used a reference scenario and one in which Europe reaches 80% CO2 emission reduction in 2050. These energy scenarios were used as a basis to calculate air pollutant emissions with IIASA’s Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS) model. Then we put the same scenarios into IIASA’s Global Biosphere Model GLOBIOM to obtain the change in land cover because of increasing bioenergy demand. I combined these datasets in chemistry transport model LOTOS-EUROS (the model of choice at my home institute, TNO) to calculate the impact on ground level ozone concentrations across Europe. To simulate ‘future climate’ we used the year 2003, in which Europe had a very warm summer, with temperatures 2-5 °C higher than normal.
Difference in average ozone concentration (in µg/m3) between the current situation and the 80% CO2 reduction scenario in 2050 under future climate change conditions for the period April-September. Negative numbers mean a decrease in ozone levels.
We found that especially for the CO2-reduction scenario, the increase in bioenergy production could cause a slight increase in ozone damage. However, the impact of reduced emissions because of more stringent air quality policies far outweighs this effect, leading to a net reduction of ozone damage. The third effect, more efficient ozone formation in a warming climate, is so strong that in 2050 ozone damage to human health could be worse than today, especially for northwestern Europe. Stringent air quality policies close to a maximum feasible reduction scenario would be needed to make sure that health and ecosystem damage towards the middle of the century is smaller than it is today.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Feb 15, 2016 | Climate Change, Risk and resilience
By Thomas Schinko, IIASA Risk, Policy and Vulnerability Program
Climate change is projected to disproportionately affect people in developing countries, through extreme weather events and slow onset events such as rising sea levels. Because the countries most affected by climate change are also those who contributed the least to the problem and with the least capacities to cope, one of the major issues in recent climate negotiations has been how to support those nations’ efforts to adapt and to address climate impacts beyond adaptation.
To address this problem, in 2013 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) for Loss and Damage Associated with Climate Change Impacts (WIM).
Yet at the Paris climate talks in December, the future of the WIM was in limbo. The Global South argued for loss and damage to be a key part of an eventual agreement, while the Global North argued for including it under the adaptation agenda. In the end, the Paris agreement quite prominently featured loss and damage. However the Global North’s fears of signing up to a mechanism that makes them liable for unlimited damage claims in the future have been addressed by adding a specific paragraph to the agreement stating, “the agreement does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation.”
A flood in Bangladesh in 2009. Flooding is project to increase with climate change, yet arguments remain about attributing specific events to the influence of climate change. Photo Credit: Amir Jina via Flickr
Building on this reconfirmed support for the mechanism, the second meeting of the Executive Committee of the WIM was held 2–5 February 2016, in Bonn, Germany. The main purpose of the meeting was to give an update on the delivery of specific activities and to consider relevant requests arising from COP21. The Paris agreement requests the establishment of (1) a clearinghouse for risk transfer to facilitate the implementation of comprehensive risk management strategies and (2) a task force to address displacement issues. On the first issue, discussions have focused on the need to move beyond focusing solely on risk transfer and the link between current disaster risk management practice and climate adaptation as there are important overlaps.
As an observer, I could feel the presence of team spirit among the committee members, all honestly committed to help the most vulnerable people. Yet one issue remained hotly debated: the degree to which anthropogenic climate change can be blamed for natural disasters and extreme weather events. I saw a strong divide between committee members from the Global North and South and between those with a strong background in disaster risk management in contrast to those coming from a climate change background. Nevertheless, even in that regard I see a good chance for a joint vision to emerge, if we can distinguish two levels of the loss and damage discourse: the practical implementation on the ground vs. the political dimension.
On the practical implementation side, a pragmatic compromise became palpable: Building on decades of experience in disaster risk management related to weather extremes and the climate variability, it was identified as an entry point to deal with current and future climate risks – whether they are triggered or intensified by climate change or not. The political level, which circles around climate finance and the question of who is going to pay for losses and damages is quite another matter. Here the anthropogenic element is existentially important, as it builds the foundation for international support under the UNFCCC. If reference to anthropogenic climate change is left out of the loss and damage discourse, the UNFCCC might lose its mandate for support, as disaster risk management falls under national responsibility. Once this door closes it could remain shut, though another one might open (e.g. via civil law).
Women in Thata, Pakistan line up for water following 2010 floods. Photo Credit: Asian Development Bank via Flickr
To overcome the political barriers and to build upon the convergence with respect to the short-term practical implementation, we suggest to foster an iterative and comprehensive risk management approach, linking risk prevention, risk reduction, risk retention, risk transfer, as well as ex-post relief and reconstruction to effectively tackle different layers of climate risks.
However, it is important not to lose track of climate change as a risk driver, by consequently screening new scientific and empirical insights. This is crucial, as future risks might substantially increase due to climate change, requiring an iterative adaptation of current practices and support by the international community.
To support such an approach, rigorous scientific input, bringing together researchers from various disciplines, practitioners, NGOs, and policy makers is crucial. Together with international partner institutions, in November 2015 we initiated a scientific hub on loss and damage to provide such input. The envisaged clearinghouse for risk transfer and the task force for climate-related displacement could become key recipients for information generated by our network, packaged with further information and distributed to make it actionable; particularly addressing the needs of the most vulnerable developing countries.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Nov 30, 2015 | Climate Change, Risk and resilience
By Thomas Schinko and Reinhard Mechler, IIASA Risk, Policy and Vulnerability Program
Discussions on dealing with the already palpable as well as future burdens from climate change have moved into the spotlight of international climate policy. They are being tackled as part of the climate negotiations via the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts (Loss and Damage Mechanism), a measure for dealing with impacts and adaptation related to extreme climate events and slow onset events that was agreed in 2013. Debate on the scope, framing and on how the mechanism will eventually be implemented is still continuing, and is heavily framed around moral issues such as compensation, liability, and a need for attributing disasters to climate change, which is a difficult and complex issue.
Opening of COP 21 on 29 November 2015. Photo: Benjamin Géminel via Flickr
To help move this contentious debate forward, we recently organized a meeting at IIASA to set up a broad scientific network to support work under the Loss and Damage Mechanism with rigorous and evidence-based research.
Since the first climate negotiations, climate justice has been a major source of contention, with countries disagreeing on the level of responsibility for climate change and the extent to which developed and developing countries should contribute to the solutions. These discussions have predominantly focused on climate mitigation responses, but over the last few years, impact and risk issues have moved into the limelight.
Discussions in the run-up to the 21st Conference of the Parties to the Climate Convention (COP 21) in Paris make it clear that answering key questions revolving around climate justice and climate finance will be pivotal for the conference to deliver on any global climate change agreement.
Even though some rich countries currently appear to acknowledge the central role of a mechanism covering losses and damages within a new global climate agreement to be negotiated at COP 21 in Paris, huge reservations remain. With changing climates, extreme weather events are likely to increase in frequency as well as in intensity. The global North fears exposure to soaring claims for financial compensation by countries of the global South, which will be facing the most severe risks from climate change. In fact, even the meaning and nature of Loss and Damage is still being debated – some suggest the Loss and Damage mechanism should be part of adaptation, while others want it to focus on residual risks that remain after adaptation efforts have been taken. For example, it could finance potential climate-induced migration.
Discussion of compensation raises complex issues about liability, and would presumably require attribution of losses and damages to emitters. Indeed, climate science has been making great progress in attribution research. Recent work has shown a significant human element in mega-events such as superstorm Sandy in 2013 in the US or the Australian heatwave in 2013. Yet, as our kick-off meeting reconfirmed, linking anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions to extreme weather events and to risks for people and property will remain extremely complex, not least as risks from climate-related events are shaped by many factors, including climate variability, rising exposure of people and assets, as well as socio-economic vulnerability dynamics. While the basic case for climate justice has been made, the concrete, enforceable case remains much harder to establish.
A protest for “climate justice” at Quezon City, Philippines on 14 November 2015. Photo: RB Ibañez via Flickr
For these good reasons and to not derail the debate by fixating on questions regarding liability, the debate has extended beyond the narrow focus on compensation – the omnipresent elephant in the room of the UNFCCC process. The meeting at IIASA, which brought together 14 researchers from 10 institutions and 8 countries, also suggested that for a productive discussion, it makes sense to focus broadly on managing various climate risks by fostering current policies and practices while keeping the climate justice debate in close consideration.
This proposal essentially suggests to build on a long history of managing climate-related (and geophysical driven) extremes by employing a broad portfolio of different disaster risk management tools, including financial instruments such as insurance or regional risk pools. As identified also by the IPCC’s 5th assessment report, building on this body of knowledge and practice for comprehensively tackling existing and increasing extremes, holds a lot of promise and has seen international support, e.g. by the Sendai Framework for Action.
The discussion at IIASA focused on these two angles – climate justice and climate risk management – and worked out the following specific foci and building blocks for an evidence-based research approach to support the operationalization of the Loss and Damage Mechanism:
- Articulation of principles and definitions of Loss and Damage, including ethical and normative issues central to the discourse (e.g. liability and responsibility).
- Definition of the Loss and Damage space vis-á-vis the adaptation space.
- Research on the politics and institutional dimensions of the debate.
- Defining the scope for dealing with sudden-onset risk versus slow-onset impacts.
In the coming months the novel network effort will tackle these issues and questions in order to provide actionable but research-based input into the Loss and Damage deliberations.
Note: The authors thank the researchers present at the kick-off event at IIASA for their input on the topic and this blog post: Florent Baarsch (Climate Analytics, Berlin), Laurens Bouwer (Deltares, Delft), Rachel James (University of Oxford), Stefan Kienberger (University of Salzburg), Ana Lopez (University of Oxford), Colin McQuistan (Practical Action, Rugby), Jaroslav Mysiak (FEEM, Venice), Ilan Noy (University of Wellington), Joeri Roegelj (IIASA), Olivia Serdeczny (Climate Analytics, Berlin), Swenja Surminski (LSE, London), Koko Warner (UNU-EHS, Bonn)
References
Bouwer LM (2013). Projections of future extreme weather losses under changes in climate and exposure. RiskAnalysis 33(5):915–930
Herring, S.C., Hoerling, M.P., Peterson, T.C., Stott P.A. (eds) (2014). Explaining extreme events of 2013 from a climate perspective. Special Supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 95(9)
James, R., Otto, F., Parker, H., Boyd, E., Cornforth, R. Mitchell, D. and M. Allen (2014). Characterizing loss and damage from climate change. Nature Climate Change 4: 938-39
Mechler, R. Bouwer, L., Linnerooth-Bayer, J., Hochrainer-Stigler, S., Aerts, J., Surminski, S. (2014). Managing unnatural disaster risk from climate extremes. Nature Climate Change 4: 235-237
Peterson, T.C., Hoerling, M.P., Stott, P.A., Herring, S.C. (2013). Explaining Extreme Events of 2012 from a Climate Perspective. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 94: S1–S74. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00085.1
Trenberth, K.E., Fasullo, J.T., Shepherd, T.G. (2015). Attribution of climate extreme events. Nature Climate Change 5: 725–730. doi:10.1038/nclimate2657
This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Nov 2, 2015 | Environment
By Ping Yowargana, IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program
Recently, Indonesia has been combating its most severe forest fire of the decade. Around 43 million Indonesians have been exposed to hazardous fumes, and countless loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services has occurred. An estimated 1 billion tonnes of carbon emission has been released to the atmosphere. Within three months, Indonesia’s daily carbon emission has surpassed the average daily emissions of the whole US economy.
Firefighters outside Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan, 15 October 2015.
Photo by Aulia Erlangga/ CIFOR
Forest fires in Indonesia are closely related to unsustainable agricultural practices spreading out throughout the country. Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil, with 8 million hectares of plantation area. Other than its significant contribution to the economy, and broadly debated effects on the environment, oil palm is also regarded as a promising solution to the country’s effort to achieve energy security. The current administration has set ambitious targets to increase national biofuel production, and to consume it domestically.
In this landscape of uncertainty and crisis, scientific support for Indonesian energy policy is more urgently needed than ever. That’s why it is one of our main focuses in the IIASA Tropical Forests Initiative (TFI).
“Scientific authority has to be the basis of our future energy policies,” said Mr. Sudirman Said, Indonesia’s Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, at the opening session of our first collaborative screening workshop in September in Bandung, Java. In the workshop, jointly organized by IIASA and the ministry, we aimed at laying out a plan to establish a new decision support system for the ministry, based on IIASA’s energy systems models such as the renewable energy systems optimization model, BeWhere and the Model for Energy Supply Strategy Alternatives and their General Environmental Impact (MESSAGE).
Scientific decision support systems (DSS) are a tangible crystallization of bridging science to policy. A decision support system gathers information and analytical expertise in order to improve the quality of policy making, using feedback and evaluation from previous planning and policy implementation. As a practical approach in dealing with what scientists refer as complex adaptive systems, such DSS should be able to integrate visions of long-term planning with technical details that are important for daily executed policies.
The IIASA and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources of Indonesia screening workshop took place from 15-17 September. ©MEMR
Indonesia’s energy sector is a typical example of a highly complex system. Currently, challenges of the sector are more cross-sectoral than ever. Issues that seem to have limited scopes, such as bioenergy, actually influence a broad swath of other areas including agriculture, land use change, air pollution, climate change and social equity.
For that reason, the approach we brought to the recent meeting relies on multiple models. BeWhere brings a snapshot perspective to explore energy supply options that best meet the objective set by policy makers, such as cost efficiency or least CO2 emissions, based on location specific energy demand, resource and infrastructure availability. On the other hand, MESSAGE brings a more macroscopic perspective, looking at various scenarios that project optimal solutions of meeting long-term energy demand in a certain region or country.
To have a truly systems perspective, the above approach cannot stand alone. Before we started looking at Indonesia’s energy sector, we had engaged local researchers in the tropics to localize IIASA’s Gobal Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIOM). GLOBIOM is used to analyze the competition for land use between agriculture, forestry, and bioenergy, which are the main land-based production sectors. Clearly, investigating further into the energy system will allow us to grasp a more holistic understanding and develop solutions to tackle challenges in tropical countries.
As one of IIASA’s pilot countries in the budding TFI, Indonesia represents conflicting realities of the tropics, which are essential to the planet’s well-being. Tropical forests help regulate the Earth’s climate system, while being home to huge biodiversity, millions of plant and animal species. However, the region is also highly challenged by domestic development needs and the growing consequences of a globalized economy. Abundant natural resources and land-intensive agricultural commodities, together with intensified infiltration of global supply chains and complicated socio-economic structures, have resulted in severe ecological pressures that are harmful to the region as well as the planet.
The TFI aspires to address such complexity by applying systems analysis together with regional policymakers. Such application implies a two-fold challenge. The first one is to put together IIASA’s various scientific tools to understand the broader picture that comes out from the integration of interrelated aspects of domestic development. Secondly, working together with policymakers leads to a mutual learning process. Policymakers learn to use scientific models and tools in their decision making process. In this process, fitting the models into the local context is an inevitable step that requires intense communication between scientist and practitioners. Eventually, this process will also benefit researchers by giving them a better understanding of the issue, and opening opportunities for further scientific investigation on new topics.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
-6.9174639107.6191228
You must be logged in to post a comment.